JPH08147560A - Automatic commodity adjustment system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide an automatic adjustment system capable of excellently monitoring dishonesty that a customer puts commodity in a cart without letting optical information be read. CONSTITUTION: In a control box 9 fixed to a side face where the handles 5a of the cart are disposed, a bar code reader 11 is provided on the side face of a basket 7 and a video camera 15 for photographing the video images of the commodity 50 housed inside the basket 7 with the read position of a bar code 51 by the bar code reader 11 as the center is provided on the upper surface. The video images photographed by the video camera 15 are radio- transmitted from a transmission/reception antenna 19 by using millimeter waves and inputted through a shop side transmission/reception antenna 25 to a shop side management station 27. A CRT for displaying the video images of the video camera 15 is provided in the shop side management station 27 and thus, the dishonesty of the customer is monitored.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic commodity clearing system for automatically calculating a total of commodity prices based on optical information given to each commodity, and more particularly to optical information for reading the above optical information. The present invention relates to an automatic commodity clearing system including a reading means in a cart.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-3094.
As described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 94, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-314367, and the like, a cart in which a product can be stored and a bar code (optical information) provided on the cart for reading a bar code (optical information) A scanner (optical information reading means), a commodity price calculating means for calculating a commodity price corresponding to the barcode read by the barcode scanner, and a commodity settlement for summing the commodity prices calculated by the commodity price calculating means. A means for automatically clearing products is being considered. In this type of system, when a customer stores a product in a cart, the barcode attached to the product is read by a barcode scanner. Then, the product price calculating means calculates the price of the product based on the barcode, and the product clearing means sums up the calculated product prices. For this reason, it is possible to automatically settle the total of the product prices without the trouble of the clerk, and it is possible to prevent the cashier from being crowded and forming a line of customers waiting for settlement.

[0003]

However, in this type of product automatic clearing system, there is a possibility that fraud occurs in which the customer stores the product in the cart without the customer reading the bar code. Since the price of the product stored in the cart in this way is not included in the total product price by the product clearing means, the product price is directly lost to the store.

Therefore, the present invention has been made for the purpose of providing an automatic clearing system capable of satisfactorily monitoring fraud such as a customer storing a product in a cart without reading the optical information.

[0005]

The invention according to claim 1 made in order to achieve the above object, as illustrated in FIG. 6, is provided with a cart capable of storing products, and a cart provided on the cart.
An optical information reading means for reading optical information given to each product, a product price calculating means for calculating a product price corresponding to the optical information read by the optical information reading means, and the product price calculating means In a product automatic clearing system including a product clearing unit that sums up the product prices calculated by the above, whether or not the products provided in the cart and stored in the cart are read by the optical information reading unit. A photographing means for photographing from a position where it can be confirmed, an image signal transmitting means provided on the cart for wirelessly transmitting a signal corresponding to the image photographed by the photographing means, and the image provided on the outside of the cart. A signal output for outputting a signal corresponding to whether or not the optical information reading unit has read the product based on the signal transmitted from the signal transmitting unit. And stage, a product automatic clearing system, characterized in that it comprises a are the gist.

The invention of claim 2 is characterized in that the image signal transmitting means wirelessly transmits a signal corresponding to the image by using a millimeter wave. There is.

The invention according to claim 3 further comprises image display means provided outside the cart for displaying an image according to a drive signal, wherein the signal output means causes the image display means to have the photographing means. The automatic commodity clearing system according to claim 1 or 2 is characterized in that a drive signal for displaying a photographed image is output.

[0008]

In the invention according to claim 1 having the above-mentioned structure, the optical information reading means provided in the cart reads the optical information given to each product. Then, the commodity price calculation means calculates the commodity price corresponding to the read optical information, and the commodity clearing means totals the commodity prices calculated by the commodity price calculation means. Therefore, in the present invention, when the customer stores the product in the cart, if the optical information reading means reads the optical information attached to the product, the product price is automatically calculated without the trouble of the clerk. You can settle the total. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the cashier from being crowded and forming a line of customers waiting for settlement.

Further, according to the present invention, the photographing means provided in the cart photographs the commodity stored in the cart from a position where it can be confirmed whether or not the commodity is read by the optical information reading means. Then, the image signal transmitting means wirelessly transmits a signal corresponding to the image photographed by the photographing means. Then
The signal output means provided outside the cart outputs a signal corresponding to whether or not the optical information reading means has read the product, based on the signal transmitted from the image signal transmitting means. Therefore, by monitoring the signal output by the signal output means, it is possible to satisfactorily detect whether or not there has been a fraudulent storage of the product in the cart without performing reading by the optical information reading means. Therefore, according to the present invention, it is possible to favorably monitor fraud in which the customer stores the product in the cart without reading the optical information.

According to a second aspect of the invention, the image signal transmitting means wirelessly transmits a signal corresponding to the image by using a millimeter wave. It is known that transmission using millimeter waves can transmit an extremely large amount of information in a short time. Therefore, in the present invention, the signal corresponding to the image can be wirelessly transmitted extremely accurately and quickly. Therefore, the above fraud can be better monitored.

Further, millimeter waves can be easily shielded and have a property that they cannot reach a long distance. For this reason, the signals corresponding to the above-mentioned images wirelessly transmitted from the sales floors apart from each other will not be crossed. Therefore, it is possible to favorably monitor a large number of carts for fraud without increasing the number of wireless transmission channels.

According to another aspect of the invention, the signal output means outputs to the image display means a drive signal for displaying the image photographed by the photographing means. Therefore, the image captured by the image capturing unit is displayed on the image display unit provided outside the cart. Since the photographing means photographs the commodity stored in the cart from a position where it can be confirmed whether or not the optical information reading means has read the commodity, the illegality is visually recognized based on the display of the image display means. It can be easily monitored.

[0013]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a configuration of a cart 1 according to an embodiment. The cart 1 of this embodiment is provided with a carriage 5 movably supported on the floor by four wheels 3, a basket 7 fixed on the carriage 5 and capable of storing a product 50, and a handle 5a of the carriage 5. And a control box 9 fixed to the side surface of the side.

On the side of the control box 9 on the basket 7 side, there is a bar code 51 attached or printed on the product 50.
A bar code reader 11 is provided as an optical information reading means for reading in the vicinity of the upper end of the basket 7. A card reader 13 for reading a credit card or a prepaid card is provided on the adjacent side surface of the control box 9. Further, on the upper surface of the control box 9, a video camera 15 as a photographing means for photographing the image of the product 50 housed in the basket 7 around the reading position of the barcode 51 by the barcode reader 11, the product price, etc. Display 17, a transmitting / receiving antenna 19 for transmitting and receiving a millimeter wave, and a large switch 2 described later.
1, a clearing switch 23 and the like are provided.

The transmitting / receiving antenna 19 corresponds to image signal transmitting means as described later, and transmits / receives signals such as images taken by the video camera 15 to / from the store side transmitting / receiving antenna 25. The configurations of the store-side transmitting / receiving antenna 25 and the store-side management station 27 that transmits / receives signals to / from the cart 1 via the store-side transmitting / receiving antenna 25 will be described in detail later.

A control circuit 30 shown in FIG. 2 is provided in the control box 9. That is, the control circuit 30 includes an A / D converter 31 for converting the output signal of the video camera 15 into a digital signal, a digital modulator 33 for modulating the converted digital signal, and an output signal of the digital modulator 33 (about 1 GHz) is mixed with the output signal (about 29 GHz) of the local oscillator 35 and converted into a millimeter wave (about 30 GHz). Further, the millimeter wave output by the up converter 37 is transmitted via the switch 39 to the transmitting / receiving antenna 1
It is output from 9. Therefore, the output signal of the video camera 15 becomes a digital modulation signal in the millimeter wave region and is transmitted from the transmitting / receiving antenna 19 to the store side transmitting / receiving antenna 25.

Further, the control circuit 30 includes a transmitting / receiving antenna 1
The received signal of 9 (a digital modulation signal in the millimeter wave region as described later) is input through the switch 39, and the signal is mixed with the output signal of the local oscillator 41 to obtain 10 MH.
Down converter 43 for converting to a digital signal of about z
And a digital demodulator 45 for demodulating the digital signal output by the down converter 43, and an ECU (electronic control circuit) 47 to which the output signal of the digital demodulator 45 is input. In addition to the above, the bar code reader 11, the card reader 13, the large switch 21, the clearing switch 23, the display 17, and a memory 49 for temporarily storing data such as a price table described later are connected to the ECU 47. .

On the other hand, the store side transmitting / receiving antenna 25 and the store side management station 27 are constructed, for example, as shown in FIG. The store-side transmitting / receiving antenna 25 is individually provided for each sales floor. For example, in the example of FIG.
0,200,300, store side transmitting / receiving antennas 25a, 2
5b and 25c are provided, respectively.

The store-side management station 27 includes a transmitting / receiving unit 71 and a CRT 73 having a configuration similar to that of the control circuit 30 described above. The transmission / reception unit 71 includes transmission / reception antennas 25a at each store.
25c demodulates the signal received (millimeter wave modulated by the output of the video camera 15) and outputs it as a drive signal for the CRT 73. Therefore, the image captured by the video camera 15 is displayed on the CRT 73. That is, CR
T73 corresponds to the image display means, and the transmission / reception unit 71 corresponds to the signal output means.

In addition, the store side management station 27 is provided with a keyboard 75 and an ECU 77 for displaying data and the like input from the keyboard 75 on the CRT 73 and for inputting to the transmitting / receiving section 71. . Therefore, when data etc. is input from the keyboard 75, the data is CR
While being displayed at T73, it is transmitted to the transmitting / receiving antenna 19 of the cart 1 via the transmitting / receiving unit 71 and the store side transmitting / receiving antennas 25a to 25c. Note that this data transmission is also performed using millimeter waves.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing the structure of sales floor data 500 transmitted from the store side transmitting / receiving antennas 25a to 25c in response to an input from the keyboard 75. This sales floor data 500 is data that is set individually for each sales floor 100 to 300, and is for each store side transmitting / receiving antenna 25a to 2a.
5c to sales floor data 5 about sales floors 100 to 300
00 is transmitted individually.

The sales floor data 500 is the sales floor 100
Store N that stores individually set numbers in ~ 300
o. 501, a message to be displayed on the display 17, for example, message data 503 for storing data such as bargain sale information, inventory information, time service information, customer call, and the like, the correspondence between the bar code 51, the product name, and the product price. The price table 505 is displayed.

When the transmitting / receiving antenna 19 of the cart 1 receives the millimeter wave modulated by the sales floor data 500,
The sales floor data 500 is converted to a low frequency by the down converter 43 and demodulated by the digital demodulator 45 to generate E
It is input to the CU 47. The ECU 47 executes an automatic clearing process for automatically clearing the price of the product 50 based on the sales floor data 500 thus input. Less than,
This automatic settlement process will be described based on the flowchart of FIG.

The ECU 47 carries out this processing every predetermined time when the customer starts shopping. The contents of the memory 49 are cleared at the start of shopping. Further, various methods of detecting the start of shopping can be considered as follows. For example,
A method of transmitting a predetermined signal by a millimeter wave at the collection point of the cart 1 and detecting the start of shopping when the signal is no longer received via the transmission / reception antenna 19, that is, when the cart 1 leaves the collection point, A method is provided in which a limit switch that operates when stacked on top of the cart 1 is provided, and the start of shopping is detected when the limit switch is turned off. The store side management station 27 monitors the usage status of the cart 1.
A method of transmitting a signal indicating the start of shopping when the cart 1 is taken out can be considered.

When the processing is started, first, step 101
Then, the department number of the received department data 500. Fifty
1 and refer to the sales floor No. It is determined whether 501 has been changed. When moving to the sales floor 100 to 300 for the first time, the sales floor No. When it is determined that 501 has been changed, the process proceeds to step 103. In step 103,
The price table 505 of the received sales floor data 500 is read, stored in the memory 49, and transferred to 105. In addition, the sales floor No. When 501 is not changed, the process directly moves from step 101 to step 105. That is, since the price table 505 does not change when the sales floors 100 to 300 do not change, the processing of step 103 is omitted and the processing time is shortened.

In step 105, the bar code reader 1
According to 1, it is determined whether or not the bar code 51 is read (bar code input is present). When the barcode 51 is read, the process proceeds to step 107. Here, based on the price table 505 stored in the memory 49,
The product name and the product price of the product 50 having the barcode 51 are read out, and the total price of the product prices calculated from the start of shopping to the present is calculated. Continued Step 10
In 9, the product name, the product price, and the total price read in step 107 are displayed on the display 17 and stored in the memory 49. In this way, the total price stored in the memory 49 is also used for calculating the total price when the process proceeds to step 107 next time.

After step 109 or step 1
When a negative determination is made in 05, the process proceeds to step 111. In step 111, it is determined whether or not the large switch 21 has been turned on. When it is not turned on, a negative judgment is made and the processing is terminated as it is, and when it is turned on,
When the determination is affirmative, the process proceeds to step 113.

Here, the large-sized switch 21 is a switch that is operated when a product, such as a large product or a product having a special shape, which is difficult to attach or read a barcode is stored in the basket 7. Also, this kind of product is inserted into the basket on the CRT.
When the confirmation is made at 73, the administrator of the store side management station 27 operates the keyboard 75 to transmit the data of the item name and the item price of the item. Therefore, in step 113, the process waits until the data of the item name and the item price transmitted from the store side management station 27 via the store side transmitting / receiving antennas 25a to 25c is received. Then, when the data is received, the process proceeds to step 115 to calculate the total price, and in the following step 117, the product name, the product price, and the total price are displayed on the display 17, and they are stored in the memory 49 and temporarily processed. finish. In the process of step 107, the process of reading the product price based on the price table 505 corresponds to the product price calculation unit, and the process of calculating the total price of the product prices corresponds to the product clearing unit.

By the above processing, when the bar code 51 is read by the bar code reader 11 when the product 50 is stored in the basket 7, the product name, the product price of the product 50, and the product price so far are obtained by the processing of steps 107 and 109. The total price of the products stored in the basket 7 can be calculated, displayed, and stored.
When the large switch 21 is operated when the product without the barcode is stored in the basket 7, step 11
Through the processes of 3 to 117, the product name of the product, the product price, and the total price of the products stored in the basket 7 can be calculated, displayed, and stored. Therefore, it is possible to automatically settle the total of the product prices without the trouble of the clerk. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the cashier from being crowded and forming a line of customers waiting for settlement.

In the cart 1 of this embodiment, when the clearing switch 23 is operated, the total price is displayed on the display 17 by another routine. At the cash register, the total price can be detected by this operation. Alternatively, the contents stored in the memory 49 may be read at the cash register, and the receipt printing mechanism may be driven based on this data. Further, the cart 1 of the present embodiment is equipped with a card reader 13 and can make a payment using a credit card or a prepaid card. In this case, there is no need to go through the cash register at all, and the congestion of the cash register can be better solved.

When the cart 1 is moved to another sales floor 100-300, the sales floor No. 501 changes. Then, the process proceeds to step 103 and the sales floor 100 to 3
The price table 505 corresponding to 00 is read. Then
The product name and the product price are read according to the price table 505 of the sales floor 100 to 300 (step 107).
Millimeter waves can be easily shielded. For this reason,
Store-side transmitting / receiving antenna 25a for each of the sales floors 100 to 300
25c can be provided to transmit different price tables 505 for each of the sales floors 100 to 300. Therefore, it is not necessary to store the price tables of the products of all the stores in the memory 49, and the memory 49 can be downsized. In addition, even if the product price fluctuates, E of the store side management station 27
The price table 505 of the sales floor data 500 output by the CU 77 may be changed. Therefore, it is not necessary to change the setting for each cart 1, and the followability to the price fluctuation is very good.

Further, in the present embodiment, the image taken by the video camera 15 is displayed on the CRT 73. Moreover,
The video camera 15 shoots an image of the product 50 stored in the basket 7 centering on the reading position of the barcode 51 by the barcode reader 11. For this reason, the customer can use barcode 5
The CRT 73 can easily and visually monitor for fraud such as storing a product in the cart 1 without having to read 1. In addition, in the present embodiment, a signal corresponding to the image is wirelessly transmitted using millimeter waves. It is known that transmission using millimeter waves can transmit an extremely large amount of information in a short time. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the above image can be transmitted extremely clearly and quickly. Therefore, the fraud can be better monitored. In addition, millimeter waves can be easily shielded and have a property that they cannot reach a long distance. Therefore, signals wirelessly transmitted from the sales floors apart from each other will not be crossed. Therefore, it is possible to favorably monitor a large number of carts 1 for fraud without increasing the number of wireless transmission channels.

In the above embodiment, in addition to this, processing such as displaying the content of the message data 503 of the received sales floor data 500 on the display 17 at any time is executed in another routine. Further, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and can be implemented in various modes without departing from the gist of the present invention. For example, in the above-described embodiment, the image captured by the video camera 15 is displayed on the CRT 73 as it is, but even if the illegality is automatically monitored by performing image processing on the image captured by the video camera 15. Good. For example, whether the product 50 has stopped at the reading position of the barcode 51, the product 50 is in the basket 7.
When the barcode is stored in the
Whether or not the above-mentioned injustice can be judged by detecting whether 1 is read or not. In this case, the C
It is not necessary to monitor the RT73, and it is possible to further save labor in store management. Further, when a fraud is detected, an alarm may be generated or the fraudulent image may be automatically recorded. In these cases, the CRT 73 is not always necessary. Further, in this embodiment, the control box 9
Although the above-mentioned automatic clearing process is executed by the ECU 47 provided inside, the signals from the bar code reader 11, the large switch 21, etc. are transmitted from the transmitting / receiving antenna 19 and the ECU 77 of the store side management station 27 performs this kind of operation. You may perform a process. Further, the millimeter wave directly modulated by the analog signal output of the video camera 15 may be transmitted, and the transmitting / receiving unit 71 may convert the millimeter wave into a digital signal. Furthermore, the price table 505 may be one that stores at least the correspondence relationship between the barcode 51 and the product price. Also in these cases, the same operation and effect as those of the present embodiment can be obtained.

Further, although not included in the gist of the present invention, in the conventional commodity automatic clearing system without the video camera 15, the price table 505 is set for each sales floor, and the store side transmitting / receiving antennas 25a to 25c (price table transmission) are set. means)
Also when transmitting with millimeter wave from, as described above,
It is possible to obtain actions and effects such as downsizing of the memory 49 and improvement of followability to price fluctuation. That is, conventionally,
Since the price table was built in the cart 1 in advance, the setting on the cart 1 side had to be changed every time the price of the product fluctuated. Since the price table for the entire store was stored, a huge memory was required. There was a problem such as there was, but such a problem can be solved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a configuration of a cart according to an embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a control circuit of the cart.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram illustrating the configurations of a store-side transmitting / receiving antenna and a store-side management station according to the embodiment.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram showing a configuration of sales floor data according to the embodiment.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a configuration of automatic settlement processing according to the embodiment.

FIG. 6 is a structural example of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Cart 11 ... Bar code reader
15 ... Video camera 19 ... Transmitting / receiving antenna 25 ... Store side transmitting / receiving antenna
27 ... Store side management station 47, 77 ... ECU 49 ... Memory
50 ... Merchandise 51 ... Barcode 71 ... Transceiver
73 ... CRT 500 ... Sales floor data 505 ... Price table

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A cart capable of storing products, an optical information reading unit provided on the cart for reading optical information given to each product, and an optical information read by the optical information reading unit. An automatic commodity clearing system comprising: a commodity price calculating means for calculating a corresponding commodity price; and a commodity clearing means for summing the commodity prices calculated by the commodity price calculating means, wherein the cart is provided in the cart. And a signal corresponding to the image captured by the image capturing means provided in the cart, the image capturing means capturing an image of the product stored in the container from a position where it can be confirmed whether the optical information reading means has read the commodity. Image signal transmitting means for wirelessly transmitting the optical information to the product based on the signal transmitted from the image signal transmitting means provided outside the cart. Product automatic clearing system, characterized in that it comprises a signal output means for reading outputs a signal corresponding to whether or not made by means. 2. The automatic commodity clearing system according to claim 1, wherein the image signal transmitting means wirelessly transmits a signal corresponding to the image by using a millimeter wave. 3. An image display means provided outside the cart for displaying an image according to a drive signal, wherein the signal output means displays the image captured by the image capturing means on the image display means. The automatic commodity clearing system according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a drive signal for causing the product to be output is output.